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They Saw the Future,
And It Worked for a While

By

Spencer Reiss

Updated July 9, 2003 12:01 a.m. ET

If anyone ever builds a museum of the Raging Nineties, they'll want a special place for the prospectus of Wired Ventures' comically catastrophic 1996 IPO. Slathered with fluorescent yellow ink, wrapped in a gatefold cover, it deliberately flouted every accepted rule for persuading Wall Street to open the spigots.

There was, to be sure, method in the madness. Wired's flagship magazine had already shot into the publishing stratosphere by trading on the conceit that the Digital Revolution was -- as the magazine's first issue...